Math Is Hard...

...It's even harder when the taxpayer takes it up the money chute. Bubblehead Les sends in a link from Michelle Malkin with an interesting twist on the Chevrolet Volt from Government Motors.

Analysis: Chevy Volt Costing Taxpayers $250,000 Per Vehicle

Each Chevy Volt sold thus far may have as much as $250,000 in state and federal dollars in incentives behind it – a total of $3 billion altogether, according to an analysis by James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

Hohman looked at total state and federal assistance offered for the development and production of the Chevy Volt, General Motors’ plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. His analysis included 18 government deals that included loans, rebates, grants and tax credits. The amount of government assistance does not include the fact that General Motors is currently 26 percent owned by the federal government.

Kinda puts that $46K price tag in perspective, doesn't it? The Volt's not exactly flying off dealer floors at a shade under $50K; imagine if that price was closer to $300,000... Now, granted, the math is a little fuzzy - they're using every penny spent developing the batteries for the Volt as part of the development for the car, for example. While this is technically true, it's also simplistic - those batteries are now available for all electric cars going forward.

Although at a whopping 35 miles per charge, I'd say someone got ripped off big time on those batteries...

It's just funny. The greenies love to hate on SUVs and trucks for not having to conform to passenger car regulations, inferring that it's some sort of special loophole or legal trick responsible. Certainly it can't just be that {gasp} regulations are different for cars and trucks, could it? Yet factor in the staggering costs, incredible amounts of government grants, loans, and tax deferments, and the hybrids *still* cost a significant amount more than their gasoline counterparts, and that's the cost of R&D. Right.

The problem I have is that these imbeciles want to use this crappy technology to force the rest of us to conform to their whim. Cars that can't go more than 30 miles on a charge that cost more than my truck and my camper - combined - are held up as some sort of magical green panacea for our energy woes. This conveniently ignore the environmental risks associated with the battery production, the power generation needed for pure electrics or the need for a gasoline motor anyways in the hybrids. The Geo Metro, with a 1.0L inline 3 cylinder, got well over 50 MPG on the highway back in the early 1990s - and the fanciest hybrid available now, some 20 years later, can barely match that even with a battery.

This is progress?

That is all.